Bryan Fischer

Last week, after being fired from his job at a food processing plant in Oklahoma, a man named Alton Nolen attacked and beheaded a former coworker. Seizing on reports that Nolen was a convert to Islam who went by the name Jah'Keem Yisrael, Bryan Fischer has now flown into a frenzy that this crime is proof that ISIS is now in the United States.

But it turns out that, according to Fischer, Islam is not solely to blame for this crime as efforts to legalize or decriminalize drugs are also responsible.

You see, Nolen was sentenced to six years in prison on drug charges back in 2011, but was released after less than two. Then, over a year later, he killed a coworker which is why Fischer declared today that he doesn't want to hear any more "nonsense" about legalizing drugs!

"Everybody wants to legalize drugs, we've got to reduce the penalty for drugs, we're over-criminalizing drugs" Fischer said dismissively. "If he had done his full six years ... then Colleen Hufford would still be alive today. So I don't want to hear any more nonsense about legalizing [or] decriminalizing drugs":

You will not be surprised to learn that, contrary to Fischer's position, Nolen's release from prison had nothing to do with efforts to legalize or decriminalize drugs:

He began his six-year sentence for cocaine possession April 26, 2011, records show. Because of plea agreements with prosecutors, he was allowed to serve the three prison sentences at the same time.

He was released on March 22, 2013, records show. Because of credits, he was able to complete all three prison sentences in just two years.

...

Prison records show Nolen was given credit for time spent in jail before prison, good conduct, a transition program and other reasons. One month, he got 151 days total off his time to do, the records show.

Shortly after Russia passed its new spate of anti-gay laws, Glenn Beck said he was so offended by one Russian commentator who called for the mass killing of gays and lesbians that he would “stand with GLAAD” against the growing tide of anti-gay bigotry and “hetero-fascism” in the country.

Then, this weekend, Beck took the same stand against growing Russian “hetero-fascism” in his closing speech at the Values Voter Summit, even though many of the summit’s sponsors and his fellow speakers have openly backed harsh anti-gay laws in Russia and throughout the world.

To begin with, Tony Perkins, the president of the summit’s chief sponsor, the Family Research Council, defended Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill when it included provisions making homosexuality a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death.

Maybe Beck was trying to hold Religious Right leaders at the summit to task for their support of brutal anti-gay policies. But if that’s the case, Beck should start confronting them directly when they come on his show, rather than singing their praises and appearing at their conferences while calling policies they support “fascist.”

RWW’s Paranoia-Rama takes a look at five of the week’s most absurd conspiracy theories from the Right.

While he isn’t busy persecuting conservative activists, President Obama spends his time helping ISIS fighters avoid airstrikes…that he himself ordered. At least, that’s what we learned this week in the alternate reality of the far-right.

After switching his plea from not guilty to guilty for making illegal campaign donations, a felony, conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza was sentenced to eight months probation in a community confinement center along with psychological therapy. The sentencing prompted yet another media tour for D’Souza, who insisted that his prosecution for breaking the law — which he admitted to doing — amounts to political persecution.

D’Souza boasted in an interview with WorldNetDaily that the government was not “successful in shutting me up,” and the conservative activist told Glenn Beck that the prosecution came at the orders from the “petty” President Obama. Beck even said that D’Souza “is a political prisoner,” despite the fact that D’Souza was not sentenced to any prison time.

Roberts defended his remarks by explaining that Obama wants to turn the U.S. into “a European socialistic state,” adding: “You can’t tell me anything that he has not tried to nationalize.”

And if rhetoric like that doesn’t work, Roberts will shore up his standing with the Tea Party crowd with the help of his latest booster: Sarah Palin.

2. People Who Believe In Climate Change Are Just Like Hitler

Rush Limbaugh knows the real reason people believe that human activities are influencing climate change. No, not because there is a consensus among climate scientists on the matter, but as Limbaugh explains, “it’s all politics.”

“It is a politics that intentionally insults the intelligence of people and preys on the dumb and the stupid and the weak,” Limbaugh said while definitely not projecting. In order to find “meaning in their lives,” Limbaugh explained, people start thinking they have the power to “save the planet” and start to feel “their new life has meaning” and that “they can make a difference.”

And you know who else thought he could make a difference with his life? Hitler.

“Hitler made a difference,” he said. “Stop and think about that.”

1. Obama Is Shielding ISIS While Bombing Them

Conservatives are having a difficult time rationalizing the fact that President Obama has launched hundreds of airstrikes against ISIS and other extremist groups while at the same time insisting that he is a secret Muslim and terrorist sympathizer.

During his remarks before the United Nations yesterday, President Obama made a reference to the killing of Michael Brown and the resulting tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, noting that while America has its difficulties, we are also "a country that has steadily worked to address our problems, to make our union more perfect, to bridge the divides that existed at the founding of this nation."

To Bryan Fischer, this was just another perfect example of Obama's unrelenting contempt for this country, saying on his radio program today that any objective observer can see that Obama fundamentally hates America.

After playing an audio clip of Obama's remarks, Fischer slammed the president for "dragging America's dirty laundry out in front of the eyes of the entire world to make the world think bad thoughts about America, again acknowledging that America is the source of all the evil in the world ... Every time that he talks to the world, he has to say something that is condemning and critical of the United States of America."

"Anybody listening to one of his international speeches and just was being objective," Fischer said, "they would have to come to the conclusion ... [that] this is a guy who that does not like the United States of America":

For the record, here is the section of President Obama's speech that Fischer believes is proof that he fundamentally hates America:

I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within its own borders. This is true. In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri -- where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So, yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. And like every country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear.

But we welcome the scrutiny of the world -- because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems, to make our union more perfect, to bridge the divides that existed at the founding of this nation. America is not the same as it was 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, or even a decade ago. Because we fight for our ideals, and we are willing to criticize ourselves when we fall short. Because we hold our leaders accountable, and insist on a free press and independent judiciary. Because we address our differences in the open space of democracy -- with respect for the rule of law; with a place for people of every race and every religion; and with an unyielding belief in the ability of individual men and women to change their communities and their circumstances and their countries for the better.

Holder’s commitment to redressing racial injustice was no more warmly received by the Right than his work in support of LGBT equality. After Holder spoke out against voter ID laws, which disproportionately harm people of color, Texas Gov. Rick Perry accused him of “purposefully” “incit[ing] racial tension.” Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt argued that Holder’s open discussion of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system means that he is the real “racist,” asserting last year that Holder wants to “intimidate the rest of the country so that we don’t think about defending ourselves” against “attacks by black mobs on white individuals.” Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association went so far as to say that Holder would never “prosecute someone if the victim is white.” And after Holder visited Ferguson, Missouri last month, David Horowitz outrageously commented that the attorney general was leading a black “lynch mob.”

And those are just a handful of the attacks the Right has leveled against Holder for his work protecting equality under the law.

The fact that the far Right has reacted with so much vitriol to the attorney general’s leadership is a sign not only of how uninterested they are in the civil rights that the Justice Department is meant to protect, but also of how effective Holder’s work has been. The next attorney general should share Holder’s deep commitment to protecting the rights of all Americans – and, by extension, make all the “right” enemies among those hoping to turn back the clock on civil liberties.

At the end of yesterday's radio program, Bryan Fischer suggested that the Obama administration's airstrikes against ISIS and other militants in Iraq and Syria are being carried out in a manner intentionally designed "to minimize the number of dead terrorists."

Fischer asserted that the administration is carrying out the airstrikes at night and is only targeting empty buildings because "they apparently do not want to kill terrorists."

"Ladies and gentlemen, the terrorists are the enemy," he said, "and these strikes seem to be calculated to minimize, rather than maximize, the inflicting of casualties on our enemies."

Fischer, of course, once again has absolutely no idea what he is talking about, as these strikes have reportedly killed the leader of the al-Nusra Front as well as hundreds of other militants.

In anticipation of this weekend’s annual Values Voter Summit, a multi-day event where GOP elected officials and presidential hopefuls rub elbows with Religious Right leaders, People For the American Way President Michael Keegan joined the leaders of the Southern Poverty Law Center and five other civil rights and LGBT organizations in an open letter calling on Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus to ask members of his party to disassociate themselves from the summit.

Its president, Tony Perkins, has repeatedly claimed that pedophilia is a “homosexual problem.” He has called the “It Gets Better” campaign — designed to give LGBT students hope for a better tomorrow — “disgusting” and a “concerted effort” to “recruit” children into the gay “lifestyle.”

… Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, a summit sponsor, has said the U.S. needs to “be more like Russia,” which enacted a law criminalizing the distribution of LGBT “propaganda.” He also has said, “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine, and six million dead Jews.”

By participating in the summit, Republican Party leaders risk legitimizing this kind of virulent extremism. Given that reality, the letter asks a simple question: where does the GOP stand on gay bashing? Reince Priebus himself has said, “People in this country, no matter straight or gay, deserve dignity and respect.” But will he walk the talk and, as the letter asks, “tell the members of your party to shun groups that demean other people and deny them dignity?”

Every year since 2006, Republican leaders have joined some of the country’s most notorious anti-gay, anti-choice activists and fringe conspiracy theorists at the Family Research Council’s annual Values Voter Summit.

Don’t be surprised if summit speakers venture off into the deep-end of the right-wing fringe this week. Far from anomalies, intolerant rhetoric, self-serving claims of persecution and doomsday predictions are a Values Voter Summit tradition.

“The gay rights movement, I believe, was birthed and inspired by the Antichrist,” McKissic added, while conservative pastor and co-panelist Wellington Boone lamented that it is no longer socially acceptable to call people “faggots.”

Romney, incidentally, was set to speak that year immediately prior to American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, who is notorious for his incendiary comments about gays and lesbians, immigrants, African Americans, Native Americans, Muslims and, yes, Mormons. During his speech, Romney criticized Fischer’s “poisonous language,” prompting Fischer to lash back at Romney. Romney ally Bill Bennett also jumped in, criticizing Jeffress for promoting “bigotry” while Perry went back and forth between ignoring the controversy and eventually distancing himself from Jeffress.

While Romney may have spoken out against Fischer during the summit, Fischer had the last laugh as he succeeded in his campaign to oust a gay official from Romney’s presidential campaign.

That wasn’t the last time we would see infighting at the Values Voter Summit. Last year, Rep. Louie Gohmert accused Sen. John McCain of supporting Al Qaeda, to which McCain responded: “Sometimes comments like that are made out of malice, but if someone has no intelligence I don't feel it as being a malicious statement.”

4.Demand Abortions Be Performed In Public

Lila Rose, the anti-choice activist known for her campaigns against Planned Parenthood, had a modest proposal at the 2009 summit: “If I could insist, as long as they are legal in our nation, abortions will be done in the public square.”

At the 2010 summit, in the midst of the fight over the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins warned that if the ban on openly gay service members was lifted, then the U.S. military would become nothing but a parade-marching force.

On his radio program today, Bryan Fischer recommended that the United States adopt an immigration policy based upon the Bible, meaning that all immigrants must convert to Christianity and completely leave behind their native practices, beliefs, culture, and language.

If we "did immigration God's way," Fischer said, that would mean that "those who came to our shores would be expected to adopt our religious values and traditions — that would mean Christianity and not Islam — and they would leave behind their religion and their god."

"That would mean leaving behind Islam and Allah," he explained, as well as adopting Judeo-Christian values, which means they they would not be allowed to complain about the sale or consumption of bacon or the inability to obtain Halal foods.

"If this were to happen," he concluded, "we would have one god, we would have one law, we would have one culture, and we would have one language":

Interestingly, Fischer made this recommendation once before but the idea was so outrageous that the American Family Association yanked his original column and changed it. Despite that, Fischer, of course, has not actually changed his views one iota.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins has excitedly touted a big “get” for this week’s Values Voter Summit: Meriam Ibrahim, the Christian woman who was persecuted by the Sudanese government over charges of apostasy. Evangelicals in the U.S. were part of the international chorus of voices who worked to keep a spotlight on Ibrahim’s plight, and Ibrahim may wish to thank some of the activists who advocated for her freedom.

But Perkins and FRC have another agenda entirely: They have been using Ibrahim as a prop in their relentless, over-the-top attacks on the Obama administration — and their claims that Christians in America are themselves facing government persecution.

Ibrahim’s vividly compelling case — for being a Christian, she was shackled to a prison floor with one small child while pregnant, then gave birth in jail — drew worldwide attention. Ibrahim had a Muslim father but was raised by a Christian mother, and in 2011 she married a Catholic American, Daniel Wali. She was arrested last September after being charged with apostasy — abandoning the Muslim faith — and for adultery given that the court didn’t recognize her marriage to a Christian. This May she was sentenced to receive 100 lashes and be hanged.

An Amnesty International campaign on her behalf generated more than a million signatures. European leaders condemned her treatment and called for her release. In the U.S., religious and political leaders called for her freedom. A petition on the White House website pushed by Perkins and others gained more than 50,000 signatures.

On May 15, the White House condemned her sentence in a statement by National Security Council Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden, which urged the government of Sudan to respect Ibrahim’s religious freedom and “to respect the fundamental freedoms and universal human rights of all its people.” The State Department also expressed concerns in May; Secretary of State John Kerry released a statement in June.

Ibrahim was freed on June 23, then re-arrested and detained briefly when she tried to leave the country. She was sheltered by the U.S. embassy for about a month until she was permitted to leave Sudan in late July. She is now living with her husband and children in New Hampshire.

Perkins has repeatedly used Ibrahim’s plight as a way to hammer the Obama administration.

While many international groups have taken up efforts to pressure the Sudanese government to release Meriam and her children, the Obama administration has said little, and done nothing.

Think about this: two innocent American children are imprisoned abroad as their life hangs in the balance. If President Obama will not act in a situation like this, what will he act upon? Does Obama care?

Fox News’ hosts got in on the act, even as its own website was contradicting those claims. A May 31 Fox News story by Joshua Rhett Miller was headlined, “US 'fully engaged' in case of Sudanese woman sentenced to die for Christian faith.” It included a quote from the State Department:

“Through the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, the White House and the State Department, we have communicated our strong concern at high levels of the Sudanese government about this case,” State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson wrote FoxNews.com in an email. “We have heard from many, many Americans that they are deeply alarmed by [Ibrahim’s] plight. We have conveyed these views to the Government of Sudan.”

Yet the video at the top of that very story on the Fox News website featured Perkins saying the U.S. government was doing “so far, nothing that we can tell” other than condemning Ibrahim’s treatment. Megyn Kelly fumed that the State Department had “refused to say bupkis” about what the U.S. government was doing. If Perkins or Kelly were aware of the possibility that U.S. officials may have believed that quiet diplomacy would be more effective, they gave no hint of it.

Other conservatives piled on: On June 11, Nina Shea at the Hudson Institute wrote, “And, as Ibrahim looks toward an appeals court review of her case, President Obama and the U.S. State department have been silent about it.”

On June 12, FRC and Concerned Women for America held a rally in front of the White House. Perkins was joined by Obama-bashers Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Trent Franks. Perkins’ remarks were wildly inflammatory. “There was a time when people of faith could sit down inside the White House and talk about these issues,” he said. Claiming that administration inaction was threatening the lives of Ibrahim’s children, Perkins said, “If this president is content with the blood of small children on his hands, then God help him.”

Perkins continued throughout the summer to complain that the Obama administration was doing nothing to help Ibrahim, even though he was told otherwise on his own radio show by a Republican congressman. On June 23, Perkins had Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., on his radio show to talk about the case. As Brian reported in RWW, Meadows undermined Perkins’ attacks on the administration:

Asked if the State Department was working to help Ibrahim and her children, Meadows reported that the U.S. has in fact worked vigorously behind the scenes to free Ibrahim: “I got off of a call not more than an hour or so ago and a number of agencies across the board are working hand-in-glove to make sure that this is handled quickly and efficiently. And I am heartened by what I heard on that phone call and really encouraged that this is a government that cares about people. Sometimes I wish they would speak up louder and quicker, but I can tell you behind the scenes a number of agencies are working to make sure that they are safe.”

Perkins isn’t alone. In August, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer allied himself with ISIS’s characterization of Iraq’s Yazidi minority and griped, “Obama will fight for Satan-worshipers but not for Christians!”

ISIS has been beheading Christian children and crucifying Christians by the side of the road. Christians for months have been fleeing Iraq in droves ahead of the murderous hordes of Al Qaeda. And Obama yawns.

When Christian wife and mother Meriam Ibrahim is imprisoned in Sudan for being a Christian, and forced to give birth in a filthy jail cell while shackled to the wall, Obama yawns. While Christian pastor and American citizen Saeed Abedini languishes in the hellhole of an Iranian prison, Obama yawns.

But when worshipers of Lucifer get in trouble at the hands of the same blood-thirsty savages, suddenly Obama springs into action.

What this reveals about the president’s religious sympathies I will leave for others to decide. But it can’t be good.

Real Persecution vs the Religious Right’s Persecution Complex

We have previously suggested that American religious conservatives should be ashamed of equating their policy disagreements or losses in legal disputes with the kind of brutal religious persecution experienced by Meriam Ibrahim and so many Christians and other religious minorities around the globe. But Perkins and others have been happy to use her case to promote their narrative that Christianity in the U.S. is on the verge of being criminalized.

"Meriam's bold stand for Jesus Christ as she faced death has touched the hearts of people in every nation. Her incredible example of courage should inspire Christians in America to be bold and courageous in their faith as we witness growing religious hostility here in our country.”

“It is difficult to look at these facts [about Ibrahim’s case] and not understand then in the light of the current administration’s unilateral reinterpretation of religious freedom domestically. This administration believes religious beliefs should be quarantined to private spaces and excluded from the public space. This truncated view of religious freedom domestically, more accurately described as the freedom of worship, is matched by the administration’s failure to even address the growing threats to religious freedom internationally.”

In August, Dusty Gates, who works for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, wrote in Crisis magazine that liberals were uncomfortable supporting Ibrahim because they don’t support religious freedom in the U.S.

Naturally, this victory for freedom (liber) is being celebrated, at least to some degree, by liberals of all kinds. A human being freed from oppression, especially from such extreme persecution as Ibrahim faced, seems to be a grand slam for the liberal cause. But with the Ibrahim case, as well as the larger situation of global anti-Christian persecution, is causing liberals to sweat a little. Just as they stand up to cheer, it seems that their impending jubilation is cut short; subdued by a palpable fear that maybe they shouldn’t be celebrating the thing they want to celebrate. “A victory for freedom? Hoora… Oh wait, for religious freedom? Uh oh….”

Gates even slammed the welcome given Ibrahim by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, saying the Nutter’s comparison of Ibrahim to Rosa Parks rather than to other religious martyrs was “a subtle attempt to hijack Ibrahim’s story: taking it out of its full context and using it as a vehicle for the liberal agenda.”

Meanwhile in the United States, we’re going about our daily lives panicking with cries of religious persecution as well…although, they’re not the cries one would think. Instead of a collective focus on wide-spread human rights abuses and religious persecution in places like Sudan, North Korea where an estimated 33,000 Christians have been incarcerated in prison camps, or the estimated thousands who actually die for their religious faith each year, we’re focused on a first world version of persecution that’s not really persecution at all.

When A&E temporarily made the decision to disassociate with Phil from Duck Dynasty over anti-gay comments he made in the media, it was labeled as “persecution”.

When public business owners in the baking industry have insisted on the right to discriminate and faced just accountability, it becomes another example of “persecution”.

We even have potential presidential candidates perpetuating such a persecution complex, with figures like Rick Santorum falsely stating that people who oppose same sex marriage are being sent to re-education camps.

With all of the legitimate and horrifying human rights violations occurring in the world, some in America have sadly adopted a very first world, privileged, and self-centered version of persecution. Instead of doubling efforts to shed light on international abuses, we’ve seen a flood of first world persecution claims– from internet trolls right up to the right wing members of government.

…Let’s reserve the “persecution” word for the real thing– such as what we saw in the case of Meriam Ibrahim.

Using Ibrahim to Attack LGBT Human Rights

Perkins has also used Meriam Ibrahim’s case to promote his attacks on the Obama administration’s advocacy for the human rights of LGBT people who face brutal persecution in many countries. In June, he wrote,

President Obama, who can't find a few minutes to call for Meriam Ibrahim's release from a Sudanese prison, had plenty of time to fly to New York and fundraise for homosexual activists.

In a late August direct mail piece, Perkins complained angrily about the “utterly shocking” fact that the rainbow flag was flown over the US embassy in Israel during a gay pride celebration.

“This would be outrageous enough all by itself—but the reality of the big picture is more frightening by far. The global Obama crusade for gay rights is happening against a backdrop of the total collapse of his real foreign policy responsibilities. We are witnessing an unprecedented level of anti-Christian persecution around the world, a colossal, international, multifront assault on religious freedom. Yet in response to these atrocities, the administration has remained all but silent….This administration is pressuring other nations to adopt Barack Obama’s radical gay agenda—but not to observe the most basic universal human right of religious freedom.”

The rest of Perkins’ letter goes back and forth between portraying the administration as fixated on gay rights and unconcerned about persecuted Christians. “We had no choice but to stand up for Meriam — because the Obama administration wouldn’t, and didn’t.”

“I urge you to stand with FRC Action again today as we fight back against the Obama administration’s outrages — their devotion to the cause of sexual immorality and their simultaneous indifference toward Christians suffering persecution for their faith.”

All the while Perkins portrays advocacy for the human rights of LGBT people — who certainly face brutal persecution in many parts of the world — as extremism.

When we see the rainbow flag of the homosexual movement flying over our embassies in Tel Aviv, London, and Prague, we can see with our own eyes what an extremist is sitting in the Oval Office.

Similar language appears in a September 6 fundraising email from Perkins, which says in part:

With President Obama promoting the homosexual movement around the world through the Obama administration, yet not working to prevent Christians from being persecuted, jailed, even tortured and killed for their faith, FRC Action’s work has grown more important than ever before.

Meriam Ibrahim may consider an appearance at the extremism-heavy Values Voter Summit as an opportunity to thank the thousands of Americans who advocated on her behalf while she was suffering in a Sudanese prison cell, and to celebrate the freedom of religion that she and her family enjoy in America.

Americans of every political and religious stripe can admire Ibrahim’s exceptional strength and courage in the face of real persecution. The same cannot be said for those who are trying to exploit her moral authority to advance their own political agendas.

On his radio program today, Bryan Fischer informed his audience that climate change is a total "hoax," telling them that there is no need to be worried about rising sea levels because God explicitly promised Noah that He would never again destroy the earth with flood waters.

"People have been out there ringing their hands and trying to stir up all this agitation and fear because the oceans are going to rise, Manhattan is going to be under twenty feet of water, Hawaii is going to disappear under the waves," Fischer said dismissively before assuring his audience that none of this would ever happen because, in Genesis 9 "God says 'look, I am not going to destroy the earth with the waters of a flood ever again."

"Every time you see a rainbow in the sky," he said, "that's what it is all about":

Finally, Bryan Fischer spent twosegments on his radio program today calling for the reinstatement of DADT, citing a recent GQ article about male-on-male sexual assault in the military. The article, of course, explicitly notes that such assaults have nothing to do with homosexuality: "'One of the myths is that the perpetrators identify as gay, which is by and large not the case,' says James Asbrand, a psychologist with the Salt Lake City VA's PTSD clinical team. 'It's not about the sex. It's about power and control.'"

On his radio show yesterday, Bryan Fischer brought up a three year-old incident in which an employee at a Halal-friendly KFC in Australia was suspended for abusing a customer who asked for bacon as concrete proof that America is a Christian nation.

"You want one single item of proof that America is a Christian nation and not a Jewish nation and not an Islamic nation?" he asked. "One single bit of proof is all you need: we freely allow restaurants and grocery stores to sell and to serve bacon. That can only happen in a Christian country."

"So the sheer fact that we freely allow the sale and consumption of bacon," he continued, "is absolute proof that we are, in fact, a Christian nation":

On his "Focal Point" radio program today, Bryan Fischer offered his insights into the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal by saying that Rice's then-fiancée, now-wife Janay Palmer Rice was essentially responsible for her own abuse, which was the result of engaging in unbiblical cohabitation.

As Fischer explained, the Bible strictly prohibits premarital cohabitation, so Ray Rice and Janay Palmer were guilty of engaging in illegitimate sexual immorality and living in sin. This biblical position is reinforced by social science research, he said, that shows that such relationships are more dangerous for women than marriage or living alone.

Fischer said that since Palmer had apparently "not been educated, did not understand biblical standards, she put herself in a place where, if her eyes were open and she was thinking clearly and she had been educated as she should have been in our school system, by her parents, at church, she would have known that the most dangerous place for me to be as a woman is living with a guy I'm not married to."

"If you want to have reasons not to do it," Fischer concluded, "getting knocked out in a casino elevator, that's the only reason that you need ... When biblical standards of morality are ignored, people get hurt":

One of the very first posts we ever wrote about the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer highlighted a column he wrote calling for Muslims to be banned from serving in the military. That was nearly five years ago and now Fischer is finally getting around to calling for atheists to be banned from serving in the U.S. armed forces as well.

Responding to a situation in which an airman was denied his request to re-enlist in the Air Force because he refuses to take an oath containing the phrase "so help me God," Fischer asserts that atheists should be prohibited from serving in all braches of the military because "there is no place in the United States military for those who do not believe in the Creator who is the source of every single one of our fundamental human and civil rights":

[O]ur military exists to uphold and defend our Constitution, and the Constitution in turn identifies the "unalienable rights" the Declaration refers to that our government is obligated to protect.

These rights do not come from government, they do not come from the commander-in-chief, and they most certainly do not come from some activist judge. They come from God himself. We are not evolved, as this wannabe-enlistee believes, but we are "created," and "endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable rights."

This is an absolutely foundational, non-negotiable, bed-rock American principle: there is a Creator - with a capital "C" (you could look it up) - and he and he alone is the source of the very rights the military exists to protect and defend.

An individual who does not understand and believe this has no right to serve in the U.S. military. Military service should rightly be reserved for those who believe in and are willing to die for what America stands for - and what America stands for is a belief in God as the source of our rights.

A man who doesn't believe in the Creator the Founders trusted certainly can live in America without being troubled for being a fool. But he most certainly should not wear the uniform.

The other branches of the military do not require the same oath - yet. But they should. Military service should be reserved for genuine Americans and genuine Americans, like the Founders, believe in God.

It was just yesterday that the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer was calling for people with HIV to be quarantined in the name of protecting the public health. So naturally, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum appeared on Fischer's radio program today to share his excitement at having partnered with the AFA on his most recent film "One Generation Away."

During the discussion, Santorum said that Christians have allowed their faith to be removed from the public square and need to start fighting back, arguing that removing the Bible from public school classrooms is not neutrality but rather the promotion of the secular worldview. He suggested that conservative Christians should respond by "calling secularism a religion because if we did, then we could ban that too."

Claiming that the absence of religion is itself a religion, Santorum said that Christians must reassert themselves and insist that Christianity "should be taught in the schools" instead of worrying about offending people:

During his "Meet The Press" interview yesterday, President Obama said that the United States would begin providing military support to the effort to control the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which Bryan Fischer cited on his radio program today in order to argue that people with HIV should be quarantined as a public health measure.

Claiming that if both Ebola and HIV are spread through the exchange of bodily fluids, then the same steps should be taken to protect the public in both cases, Fischer asserted that "this is how liberals will always betray, when they don't realize what they're doing, they will betray the reality that they are fundamentally conservative at the core."

"Here's President Obama saying when you've got a public health crisis that is caused by a virus that is transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, what do you do?" Fischer asked. "You quarantine it! You even use military assets, if needed, to quarantine the people who have that virus so they cannot transmit it and spread it among the rest of the population":

On his radio show today, Bryan Fischer stated that he read an article last week about the characteristics of a person who is pathologically narcissistic and couldn't help but conclude that President Obama easily met that description.

Reacting to Obama's interview on "Meet The Press" this weekend in which he admitted that going golfing after delivering a statement on the murder of James Foley might have looked bad, Fischer was reminded of the piece he read last week that described narcissists as people with big egos who are highly sensitive to criticism and who are isolated because they do not believe that anyone else is worthy of sharing their company.

"You start reading this description of a pathological narcissist," Fischer concluded, "and it's just virtually impossible not to wonder how much of that applies to our president, because it sounds so familiar":

Of course, while claims that Obama is persecuting Christians are completely manufactured by conservatives, there is ample evidence that Putin-sponsored forces in eastern Ukraine are violently persecuting evangelical and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians. The New York Times reports:

Embracing Orthodox Christianity as a force to unite these now divided Slavic lands and also their own fractured movement, the rebels, fortified recently by an influx of weapons and soldiers from Russia, used their period in power here purging Slovyansk of rival Christian denominations.

…

Among their principal targets were Christians defiant of the Moscow church’s claims of religious primacy and suspected of connections with the West.

“Their logic is simple: You are an American church and America is our enemy so we have to kill you,” said Mr. Dudnik, the evangelical pastor. No one at his center had been killed, he said but added that the rebels had murdered four evangelical Christians from another Slovyansk church.

Grabbed by pro-Russian gunmen in June after a Pentecost service at the Divine Transfiguration Church, all four victims were taken away for interrogation and were later found dead in a burned-out car.

While inventing never-ending conspiracy theories about Obama’s supposed crackdown on Christianity, Religious Right leaders don’t appear to mind the real attacks on Christians happening in Russia, under the watch of a leader who they see as an ally in the fight to turn back gay rights and reproductive freedom.

Bryan Fischer Posts Archive

On his radio program today, Bryan Fischer speculated that the attack by radical Muslim terrorists on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed twelve people may have been God's retribution for the magazine's blasphemy.
Given that the magazine, in addition to mocking Islam and Muhammad, also had a long record of running satirical articles and cartoons about Christianity and Jesus, Fischer raised the possibility that this attack was punishment for the magazine's repeated violation of the commandment that "you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."... MORE >

Bryan Fischer is very upset that Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran was fired for violating city employment policies after distributing to co-workers an anti-gay book that he had self-published, responding on his radio program today by declaring that gay people ought to be disqualified from serving in public office.
The American Family Association spokesman reiterated his view that gay people should not be allowed to serve in office after learning that one of the city council members who objected to Cochran's book is gay.
"This is one of the reasons why, ladies and gentlemen," he... MORE >

2014 was a great year for conspiracy theorists running for office, but these extreme politicians couldn’t do it without the help of a conservative media bent on pushing outlandish conspiracy theories from the fringe into the mainstream. Here, gleaned from our weekly Paranoia-Rama, are the conspiracy theories that shaped the year.
Immigration Insanity
While the temporary increase in unaccompanied child migrants coming to the southern border this summer has since subsided, the children fleeing violence in Central America provoked a year’s worth of fear mongering and conspiracy... MORE >

Supporters of marriage equality made tremendous progress this year in striking down discriminatory bans on same-sex marriages while, on the local level, more municipalities have enacted legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Radical Right, however, sees these changes as a reason to find new strategies to fight what it believes is a tyrannical government bent on persecuting conservatives and inviting divine punishment. Facing losses in court and at the ballot box, many conservatives hope that their brand of anti-gay politics may find more success... MORE >

On his radio broadcast on Friday, Bryan Fischer offered a rather straightforward explanation for why President Obama recently took steps to restore ties with Cuba: he is "just doing a solid" for his fellow communists.
Even though Fischer himself called for an end to the embargo after taking his own trip to Cuba earlier this year, he's pretty sure that Obama is only doing so because of his communist sympathies.
"I think, frankly, Barack Obama sees that he's in the same fraternity with Fidel Castro," Fischer said. "They are fellow communists. I think he envies... MORE >

A professor at Marquette University has been suspended after he wrote a blog post attacking a teaching assistant at the university for reportedly not allowing a student to argue against gay marriage during a classroom discussion, which prompted Bryan Fischer to complain on his radio program today that people who oppose marriage equality are now being treated like they are infected with the Ebola virus.
"If you are a conservative like you and me," Fischer said, "and you believe in natural marriage, you have the equivalent of the Ebola virus, according to the left. You must be... MORE >

It’s time to cast your vote for the winner of People For the American Way’s annual Equine Posterior Achievement Award, which recognizes the worst of the worst in right-wing extremism.
Our 2014 nominees outdid themselves this year in promoting conspiracy theories, inventing persecution myths and pushing bigotry, and now it’s your turn to decide who wins this year’s coveted award.
Ted Cruz: Last year's EPAA winner Ted Cruz didn’t run for office in 2014, but that didn’t stop him from rallying Religious Right voters. The possible 2016 presidential hopeful... MORE >

Last week, we reported that the anti-gay, Christian nationalist organizers of a supposedly nonpolitical prayer rally that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is hosting next month had reused some materials from a similar rally hosted by Texas Gov. Rick Perry back in 2011, including a prayer guide blaming LGBT rights and legal abortion for natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
Blaming Hurricane Katrina on gay people and abortion, it turns out, didn’t go over so well in the state that was hardest hit by the 2005 storm, and after reporters in Louisiana started asking the organizers and... MORE >